Top 9 Tips to Prepare Your House For Sale

How to Prepare Your House For Sale

Top 9 Tips to prepare your house for sale from top realtor and professional marketers:  The Brad Officer Real Estate Group or http://www.BradOfficer.com

To get absolute top dollar for your home, you must prepare your house for sale.  I'm always amazed at the condition of many homes I visit, and it's even worse when my Buyer customers start commenting on the poor condition of homes that are attempting to be sold for a premium price.  Don't make that same mistake!  Take the time and get your house ready for the market.

Top tips to prepare your house for sale:

1. Start Outside:  Curb appeal can't be stressed enough.  Cut the lawn, edge everything, and trim back hedges and tree limbs.  Now is not the time want a "private" yard.  You want light and high visibility.  Fertilize, water, freshen the mulch, and get some seasonal flowers planted.  The importance of this front picture is everything.  It's the first photograph that shows up on all the real estate search sites.
2. DeClutter!  You are moving right?  Why not take the time to go ahead and box up half your stuff that you've accumulated.  Get a POD and pack it tight.  Do you really need a juicer, your treadmill, and all those knick-knacks?  Nows the time to get down to what you really need to live.  Unpack all those stuffed closets and pack the POD with all the extra furniture that you don't really need.  Trust me - it'll show 10 times better without all your random stuff, and will look so much bigger with all that freed up space.
3. Stage what you have.  Ever go into a luxury model home and open a refrigerator?  Pellegrinos are lined up perfectly next to the fresh strawberries that are flanked by the un-opened bottle of white wine.  You can't live like this, but pay attention to the way you put things in cabinets - line them up better.  Organize your closets so that everything is nice, not packed tight with clothes you stopped wearing in the 90s.
4. Countertop clear off:  Soap dispensers only, except for the kitchen.  In the kitchen a soap dispenser, your knife set, and fresh flowers.  Contertops are a work area, not a display shelf for all your kitchen tools.  Less is always better.
5. Toilets and Trash Cans:  All lids always closed.  Never "ready to use".  I see way too many pro real estate photographers with ready to use toilets.  Close the lids!  Keep all trash out of the trash cans on photo day or showing days.  Kitchen trash can must remain closed and prefer it to be empty on day of showings.
6. Garage:  The most often untouched room in a house.   Please, pack up all this stuff in the POD.  Clean the garage, and pay to have the floor epoxied.  It makes the garage look so much better.  Without doing this, your potential buyers will view the garage just as it is.  A packed area that they will never be able to park their cars in either.  Declutter it, and use it as a garage to park in.
7. Remove Screens off Windows:  You can store these in your garage that is now empty.  Removing the window screens will give you the chance to actually clean the windows.  It'll also make your house look much brighter from the inside and the outside.  Curb appeal - see #1 above.
8. The Little Things:  Get a new welcome matt.  Touch up paint base boards, trim, and any needed areas.  Full rolls of toilet paper.  Orange scented air fresheners.
9. CLEAN EVERYTHING:  Make the house shine like never before.  Clean, clean, and clean some more.

I do understand it is not easy to do all this, so if you need the help we can provide you with home stagers, movers, landscapers, and cleaning services that can do all this for you.  Hope this list helps!  Now may be the time to start shopping for your next home:  Jacksonville Real Estate Search.  Maybe you are ready to sell your home:  Our Listing Services.

Give us a call at 904.234.5196 if we can help you buy or sell real estate in Jacksonville, FL.